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The Arab world has never seen the like of it - in a region accustomed to despots, a seemingly invincible dictator was dragged in cuffs and chains to a court of his own citizens in Iraq yesterday.

Saddam Hussein was defiant, if at times confused, as the worst atrocities of his regime were read in brief form. Seeming to think he was still in power, he repeatedly raised his hand, as though he might silence the judge.

Asked his name, he said twice: "I am Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq."

He was brought by helicopter to a US military base near Baghdad in which the court is set. He was then ferried to the door of the court in what was described as an "explosion-proof bus".

The former dictator was made to walk the last 20 metres in handcuffs, and the first signal to those in the court of his imminent arrival was the jangling of a chain around his waist as his prison service escort removed it.

As an unidentified judge read the charges, Saddam sat passively - sometimes with a half smile. There was little reaction from him until the 1990 invasion of Kuwait was mentioned - at which point he exploded, jabbing a finger in the air.

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"Please, please," he said repeatedly in a voice that was described as weak and hoarse as his mood lurched from confidence to apparent defeat. At one stage he produced a yellow sheet of paper and proceeded to take notes and at another he professed not to know what to make of the proceedings.

Saddam was a slimmer, cleaner version of the lumpy fugitive the world last saw in December, when he was dragged - overweight, dishevelled and unkempt - from a hole in the ground near the village of his birth, Tikrit.

Despite Saddam's love of military uniform, this was a shadow of the larger than life Saddam who swaggered around his gilded palaces as he presided over decades of misery for Iraq's 25 million people.

This is all a theatre. The real villain is Bush - Saddam Hussein

There were bags under his eyes but the straggly beard of seven months ago had been sculpted into a trim beard and the customary Saddam moustache. He wore a grey jacket, a crisp white shirt, brown trousers and polished black shoes.

Alone, he was eased into a chair that sat some distance in front of a table at which the judge sat - with a copy of the Koran wrapped in green cloth before him.

How old was he, the judge wanted to know. Did he understand his rights?

According to a preliminary unofficial translation, the defendant fired back with his own questions: Who was this judge? Under what jurisdiction had the court convened? "I am the president. I can't be stripped of office by this occupation."

But as court reporters recorded the proceedings in Arabic longhand, the judge reminded him that he could be - and had been - stripped of the presidency under the Geneva conventions.

Asked if he could afford a lawyer, he became jocose.

"The US says that I have millions stashed in Geneva . Why couldn't I afford a lawyer?"

Watched by a tight group of Iraqis - court officials and representatives of several of the new Iraqi government ministries, who listened electrified through the 30-minute hearing - the firepower of his questions was in marked contrast to the sullen contempt his US interrogators say he has retreated to since his arrest.

But on the Kuwait charge he leapt at the judge. "How can you as an Iraqi say that? I did it for the people of Iraq - they tried to drop oil prices and they tried to make $10-prostitutes of Iraqi women. They were dogs."

And he feigned ignorance of the 1988 gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, telling the court: "Yes, I read about that in the press - they said it happened in the time of Saddam Hussein."

The rest of the charges, based on more than 30 tonnes of documents held by US and Iraqi authorities, dealt with the suppression of the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in 1991, the Anfal campaign that began in the same year, in which thousands of Kurds were rounded up and massacred; the death in 1983 of 5000 members of the Barzani clan; the systematic elimination of his domestic political and religious opponents; and the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.

At one stage Saddam leaned back in his chair and denounced the proceedings as theatre. "Bush is the real criminal," he declared.

When the judge finished his reading, Saddam asked: "Have you finished?"

Judge: "Yes."

Saddam: "Halas!" (Arabic for finished).

At that point he refused to sign a document acknowledging he understood the proceedings.

The judge, maintaining the cool he displayed throughout - except when he rebuked Saddam for referring to Kuwaitis as dogs - said he would note in the court record that Saddam had been told his rights.

After Saddam's appearance the court dealt with 11 of the men who held his regime together for more than 25 years. They, too, arrived by a bus escorted by Humvees. The last vehicle in the convoy was an ambulance.

Alongside Saddam is the man Iraqis call Chemical Ali - Ali Hassan al-Majid - a cousin of the former president who is held responsible for the poison gas attacks in Halabja in March 1988.

Other members of the Saddam cabal are Taha Yassin Ramadan, who has a reputation for great cruelty, and the seemingly urbane Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister who was Iraq's chief diplomat in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War.

In Baghdad, where people often say what they think is expected of them, the reaction to Saddam's court appearance was mixed. Behind the anonymity of a straw poll conducted by a radio station, 45 per cent of callers wanted him dead now, but a remarkable 41 per cent urged that he be released.

The charges he faces are a deadly serious confrontation with Iraq's brutal past, but the hearing in the first days of the new Iraqi interim government was a show trial of sorts - as the only formal business conducted since the handover, it was intended to show the people that Iraqis were again in charge and that they had legal, if not physical, control of Saddam.

Like everything else in Iraq, the legal system has to be rebuilt, and in the words of one legal commentator, the tribunal will be "making up the law as it goes".

The chief prosecutor, Salem Chalabi, said: "Saddam is going to want to use the tribunal as a platform for his political views, but we're not going to let him. We're going to make him focus on the very specific charges against him."

After the hearing there was condemnation - and some support - for Saddam in the streets of Baghdad.

Safaa Yousef, a restaurateur, said: "He was rude. He should have answered the judge's questions, but it's good to see the hearing on TV. That way we know it's not fake."

In Sadoun Street, a driver, Alaa Chalube, waved his hands in disgust. "They should not waste their time with this hearing. Just execute him."

In his light-fitting shop, Hazim al-Adamia was still backing Saddam. To the general agreement of his gathered staff he said: "All leaders do bad things, but at least in Saddam's time we were safe and secure and he should be proud that he never let the Israelis open an embassy in Baghdad."